I've participated in several strategic forums on the future
of the arts and arts education. One was convened by the Association of
Performing Arts Presenters and another by the Cultural Data Project with
sponsorship from Bloomberg Philanthropies; a third was part of the Arts
Education Partnership planning process. In each, there was discussion of the
fact that there is all too often a difference between what the word art means to those who steward and
advocate for the arts and what it means to others.

I was reminded how useful it is to remember that the word art means many different things to
different people, depending on what they have experienced and how their
experiences have been framed to them. Art can be understood as:

a visual, performance-based, literary or media product;
an artifact such as a painting or a play

the market and market value of artifacts

the industry that produces one or more kinds of
artifact or sensory experience as its product

the sensory competencies and artifacts used by workers
to produce any goods and services

a distinctive kind of sensory engagement with an
artifact, such as that of an audience, reader or collector

a creative process of sensory exploration, such as
composing or choreography

a set of competencies that might be studied in an
academic curriculum, including skills such as creating, performing,
appreciating and criticizing, as well as areas of knowledge, such as
history, biography and aesthetic theory

applying sensory competencies to problem solving, such
as design, architecture and environmental planning

the history of the forms, traditions and conventions of
visual, performance-based, literary and media expression

Any of these meanings in any combination may be what someone
who says the word art means to
convey. Any of these meanings may be something a given individual has
experienced, has not experienced, has experienced by another name, recalls as a positive experience or recalls as a negative experience.

As advocates, it's important to remind ourselves of the many
referents the word art can have so we
can identify the kind of art the individuals who make up our stewards, our
authorizers and our constituents have the collective will to support. Also, for
some individuals, a bad experience or association with one kind of art can
accidentally result in the rejection of other kinds that would otherwise be
perceived as favorable or that have not yet been experienced. If we don't
clarify what we are talking about precisely, we run the risk of missing
opportunities to find common values.

In various places and
circumstances, we will have to make calculated decisions about whether we can—through
basic education or other means—familiarize people with favorable experiences
they recognize as "art" or can find other vocabulary to sustain the
public value of all the wonderful meaning that the arts can bring to our
individual, family and community lives. It is not unusual for the focus groups
and polling that precede public referenda for tax support of arts and other
cultural organizations, such as libraries, or other causes, such as the
conservation of natural resources, to find that the word arts will not get a favorable response from voters. We hear of
surveys where people who go to performances in parks, frequent art museums, and
attend school musicals and plays answer that they do not participate in the
arts. In some states, leaders of the state arts agency have determined that
their purpose and public value will be better perceived if they are conveyed by
words other than art.

Princeton sociologist
Paul DiMaggio has described compellingly "the process by which urban
elites forged an institutional system embodying their ideas about the high arts"
between 1850 and 1900.* His analysis of the emerging wealthy class of Americans
adopting certain European artistic traditions as their own, part of their
aspiration to the equivalence of royalty, goes a long way toward explaining
why, after a century and a half, many Americans express the sense that "art"
is not familiar, comfortable or meant for them. To this I would add the
evolution of traditions of art from realism and lyricism (easily understood by
unschooled as well as schooled observers) to more esoteric, abstract, dissonant
and self-referential aesthetics that challenge long-established notions of
verisimilitude, harmony of parts and beauty.

We will have to learn to communicate more effectively the
particular contribution of the arts and arts learning to creativity, problem
solving, imagination and innovation, just as we have gotten better at
communicating the particular contribution of the arts to prosperity and, with
the recent adoption by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) of its new Arts
and Cultural Production Satellite Account, to U.S. gross domestic product (see slides
and resources
from NASAA's recent web seminar on this BEA initiative with the National
Endowment for the Arts [NEA]).

We also must pay attention to the practical and sometimes
political consequences of definitions. A "fine arts" curriculum
requirement has been defined universally to mean music, visual art, drama and
dance so that the standard offering of an English-language arts class cannot be
passed off as providing an arts education. This is perfectly understandable,
but it means that if we want our children to learn poetry and other genres of
creative writing, a fine arts requirement will not get that job done; we have
to fight that battle for inclusion within the English-language arts standards. Researchers
and funders commonly refer to the "benchmark arts," by which they
generally mean the more traditional forms of participation in the arts that are
reflected in the longest-standing NEA program areas and which have been the
focus of NEA Survey of Public Participation in the Arts studies since 1982,
such as jazz and classical music concerts, opera, plays, ballet, and visits to
art museums or galleries. Again, there are practicalities that have led to this
usage, but they can pose challenges for those proposing study and funding of
media arts, folk and non-European art forms, and multi-arts expression.

I've come to believe that our strategic program and
operations planning has much less chance of success without complementary
communication planning, which includes strategic choice of vocabulary, slogan
and logo. For instance, I think that the goal of appropriate value and
resources for arts learning in American education will be realized only when
language becomes commonplace that recognizes the reality that numeracy,
literacy and sensory imagery are each essential symbol systems and means of
understanding and expression through which students learn everything, and are
therefore of comparable importance. I also think that while our slogan for the
goal of American education is "college and career preparation" and
not "college, career and civic preparation," it will continue to be
easy for educators to undervalue the role of the arts in empowering the
development of individual voices—that essential preparation for participation
in a democracy. Asking what language can help us achieve our goals and what
language will indicate we are achieving our goals is a valuable exercise. As
always, your comments, questions and suggestions are welcome.